Comment by al_borland

> it shouldn't make us understand less

The understanding derived from actually writing the code and making it work is much different and deeper than looking at code written for you, looking at it, and thinking, "yeah, that seems like it makes sense".

Even if I spend a significant amount of time reviewing the code to try and understand every line that was used, I don't necessarily understand why it was chosen, what were the alternatives, what would the trade offs of those alternatives be, what seems like it should work but actually wouldn't, how something might break if a little part is missing... These are all things that are better understood when actually writing the code.